


Five People Martha Never Met

by wheatear



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Canon Compliant, Gen, Off-screen Character Death, Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatear/pseuds/wheatear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people Martha met in the Year That Never Was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five People Martha Never Met

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for [](http://daystarsearcher.livejournal.com/profile)[**daystarsearcher**](http://daystarsearcher.livejournal.com/), for [](http://help-japan.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://help-japan.livejournal.com/)**help_japan**.

_i._

“He’s called the Doctor,” she began, “and he travels in a little blue box...”

When she started this journey, she thought that people wouldn’t believe her. She thought that convincing them would be the hardest thing. But her story gave people hope – and for that reason, if nothing else, they took her words to heart. Most of them.

“A blue box?” A girl with red hair and a smudged face stared at her. “A... police box?”

“Yes,” Martha confirmed. She stared back in surprise as the girl blanched. “Wait – do you know something? Have you met the Doctor?”

The girl didn’t wait to reply. She turned and fled, pushing her way back through the crowd. Martha chased after her.

She caught up with the girl in a drab and dirty bedroom to find her sitting on the bed, back turned, head down. Martha noticed that she was compulsively wringing her hands.

She sat down beside her and spoke as gently as she could. “Do you know him?”

The girl looked up, wild-eyed. “No, I don’t. He was imaginary, that’s all he was, my imaginary friend.”

“Well, this Doctor isn’t imaginary. He’s real and he’s up there.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.” Martha reached out to squeeze the girl’s hand, causing her to flinch. “Listen, what’s your name?”

“Amy. Amy Pond.”

“Amy, I promise you that the Doctor is real. He’s a Time Lord, an alien, just like the Master – only he’s here to save us. That’s what the Doctor does. He saves people.”

Amy stared at her, a multitude of tiny, subtle expressions flashing across her face. Martha saw it flickering then, that small sliver of hope. Then Amy’s mouth tightened. “You’re not seriously going to put all your hope and faith in him, are you?”

“I seriously am.”

“Then you’re seriously stupid.”

The look Amy gave her was full of a deep, old hurt, and it shocked Martha into silence. Words – the weapon the Doctor relied on her to wield – failed her for only a moment, but it was enough. Amy stormed away again and this time when Martha tried to look for her, she was nowhere to be found.

Amy Pond. The girl with red hair. The girl without hope. Martha never did see her again.

 

_ii._

She met the woman in black in Paris. Martha had joined a group of smugglers who were sneaking her through an underground facility when the alarm sounded. Their cover was blown. She ran, splitting off from the others and clutching her TARDIS key to her chest. But a perception filter could only do so much, and it failed the instant Martha turned a corner only to walk straight into a masked figure.

“S-sorry!” she managed.

The figure became very still. “Martha Jones.”

The voice was female, cultured. “That’s me,” she answered, though her heart sank. “I’m a bit lost; do you think you could help me?”

“You’re quite the legend,” the figure continued. “The most wanted woman on the planet. If I hand you over, I’d get a big reward.”

Martha started backing away. “If you hand me over, the Master wins. That’s it. Everything’s over, the whole human race. What reward is worth the end of the world?”

“The world’s already ended.”

It was spoken softly, with just a hint of vulnerability. Martha took her chance.

“Help me,” she said, “and we’ll bring it back. Why do you think the Master’s so afraid of me? It’s because he knows I can stop him.”

“Follow me,” said the woman in black, and they ran.

Later, when she unmasked and Martha saw a proud face and laughing green eyes, she understood that Christina de Souza did not care that the world had ended. When she told her story, Christina only had one thing to say.

“I don’t need saving, thank you.”

She believed that it was too late for that.

 

_iii._

It wasn’t every day you met the former Prime Minister. They sat down for a cup of tea in an abandoned farmhouse and Harriet Jones listened to her story without blinking. She had a tea cosy. Martha wondered how it was that the world had ended and Harriet could have a tea cosy.

“They used to call it keeping up appearances.” Harriet tugged at a thread on her cardigan. “We all keep what little we have.”

“Will you spread the word?” Martha asked.

“Yes, I’ll spread the word. Though I wish we didn’t have to rely on him. I had mechanisms in place before the Master took control of them all, you know.”

“You mean Torchwood,” said Martha matter-of-factly.

“Yes – though how do you know about that?”

“Through a certain Captain Jack.”

Harriet smiled. “I saw him, on the news report. I suppose he was one of the first casualties.”

“Oh, no. Jack... has this way of bouncing back. He’s alive. Just like the Doctor. And once I’m done down here, I’m going to get both of them.”

“Oh, Martha Jones,” said Harriet. “I wish you the very best of luck.”

She lifted her tea cup and they toasted each other over the clink of china.

 

_iv._

She was running to the encampment gate, lights and voices chasing after her – and guns, she knew they had guns, but amid the flickering and the shouting she trusted her key to keep her that little bit invisible – until she reached the gate. It was locked, too high to climb and the way she’d come in was blocked.

Then she heard a quite different voice. “This way!”

Martha pressed herself against the wall as a woman and two children appeared. The woman glanced back, then surreptitiously pointed something at the gate, opening it with a click.

A sonic screwdriver.

Martha had to know who she was. She followed them out and shadowed them all the way to the basement of a house – a hidey hole – where Martha stumbled in to find a whole group of children eagerly opening a bag that the woman had brought them.

The woman turned suddenly.

“I know you’re there. Don’t think a perception filter is going to fool me.”

She had Martha speechless from the start. But her face broke into a smile, and Martha felt a warmth that she hadn’t experienced in a long time as Sarah Jane Smith introduced herself.

“I know them both,” she said. “The Master is an old enemy of the Doctor’s, very old. But I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t vote for him.”

 

_v._

“So this Doctor man, eh, he travels to the stars?”

The old man didn’t look sick. He sat up to talk to her, and his gaze was bright and alert. But his skin was papery and even under the blankets she could tell that he was thin. They’d asked for a doctor.

Martha could never refuse.

“He travels anywhere,” she replied. “All the way through time and space. There’s nowhere that he can’t go.”

He chuckled. “I used to look at the stars, you know. Got myself a telescope and my little book, and I’d park myself up the same hill every evening and gaze at the stars.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“Wish I still had that old telescope. I’d show it to that Master fellow, I’d point the whole galaxy out to him and say, ‘You really want to make war with something as amazing as that?’ Shame on you.”

Martha nodded, the tears clustering behind her eyes. “Shame on him.”

He patted her arm. “Hey, what are you getting yourself so upset for? You said the Doctor would set things to rights.”

“I know.” She smiled at him. “I think the Doctor would like you.”

“Nah, I’m not important. Look, I know why you’re here, but don’t you worry yourself about me. You and the Doctor save the world. If there’s one thing I want, it’s for my granddaughter to have a future. She’s been looking after me, and I said, ‘Donna, you’re wasting your time, look after yourself, girl.’ But she won’t listen, bless her.”

“Wilf...”

She told him that everyone was important and she fought to save him; she lingered longer than she should have to take care of him. She thought that she had never met anyone with as much grace as him. A week later he was gone.

It had been three hundred and fifty nine days. Martha began the long journey back to London.


End file.
